Better This Way
by Etana1
Summary: Luke's having a bad day and an unexpected arrival at the diner can only make it worse. An LL tale, SPOILER'ish for "So...Good Talk". [COMPLETE]
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This story does somewhat spoil "So...Good Talk" although really, from the disastrous wedding night onward, I always felt the only way that Luke and Lorelai were going to get back together is with some serious Emily intervention. 

For the moment this is a one-shot because I honestly don't know how the next scene would play out... perhaps it is better to leave it to the imagination. ;)

Copyright: The show owns the characters, not me.

* * *

It had been a bad day for Luke.

It had in fact be a series of very bad days for Luke. He woke in the morning, came down stairs for the breakfast group. No Lorelai. There had been no Lorelai for breakfast since that horrible night at Gilmore wedding. Invariably though having to serve an endless stream of customers that were not Lorelai just served to blacken his mood.

Then no Lorelai with the lunch rush.  
No Lorelai coming for a horribly unhealthy dinner.  
No Lorelai running in at random times over the course of the day to beg for coffee.

By the time he closed up the diner in the evenings, it was all Luke could do but trudge up the stairs and collapse numbly into bed to await another Lorelai-less day.

As miserably as he was though, Luke kept telling himself he had done the right thing. He had cut himself out of the whole tangled Lorelai-Christopher-Gilmore family nightmare. If he had stayed he would've only been dragged in deeper and had his heart raked over the coals later.

He had done the right thing.  
He had done the smart thing.  
He had.

And this is what he repeated to himself as he stacked cans, dried coffee mugs and missed Lorelai like someone had cut a hole the size of a bowling ball in the center of his chest.

He heard the chimes on the diner's front door and could not bring himself to look up, to face another customer. "I'm about to close up," Luke called, his back resolutely turned.

"Hello Luke."

Luke turned. He was vaguely surprised he couldn't even muster the energy to be shocked or horrified. If a fiery chasm had opened in the floor and hell had spat out his worst nightmare, he probably wouldn't have been shocked. Although, all thing considered, maybe it had.

"Emily," he acknowledged.

"I was wondering if we could talk," Emily said, perhaps a little too brightly as she sat down at the counter.

"I don't talk, I just serve the coffee," Luke replied blandly. "It is something I'm known for."

"It won't take long," she said, slipping off her coat and making herself comfortable.

Luke sighed, leaning heavily on the counter. "It's late, Emily. I have worked all day in my quaint little diner and now I am very tired. I don't know what is going on with you and Lorelai right now, but I have nothing to do with it. I am gone from Lorelai's life."

Emily fidgeted for a moment, staring at her hands. Luke was struck momentarily by how much it reminded him of Lorelai when she was working herself up to say something she really didn't want to say.

"It went all wrong," Emily said finally.

Luke snorted, the hurt inside him bubbling up before he could stop it. "What Lorelai and Christopher didn't fall into each other's arms after I left that night? Don't worry, just give them time."

Emily shook her head, "No, I don't think it'll ever happen now."

Luke said nothing, so Emily looked him plainly in the eye. "I never understood it. Lorelai wouldn't marry Christopher at sixteen, even when she was pregnant. He wasn't a good father to Rory, but he was her father and Lorelai... all those years that she pushed him away, I always knew Lorelai did love him. I always thought eventually, given enough time, she'd work that out and they'd be the family that they always should have been. It wouldn't have made up for everything that had been lost, but maybe..."

The gaping bowling ball size emptyness in Luke's chest was expanding exponentially now, threatening to create a black hole that would leave him as only a hollow shell. His stubborn pride was the only thing preventing his knees from giving out underneath him. Luke swallowed thickly, "Emily, for the love of God, will you please just go."

"I made a mistake, Luke," Emily said. "I thought I was fixing things so that they would end up perfect, just as I always wanted for her. I thought I knew what my daughter looked like when she was in love. But if she ever loved Christopher, it is nothing compared to what she feels for you."

Luke felt hope begin to swell up in him, but he stamped it down firmly. Instead he forced himself to meet Emily's eye. "Why are you telling me this?"

Emily's eyes narrowed and she seemed to regain some of her usual regal air. "Because I'm not sure you deserve her."

"Well you've made that plainly obvious."

"Oh please, I'm not talking about your place of employment or your questionable shaving technique," Emily said. "Lorelai loves you and you clearly love her. I thought it was foolish enough when you two made eyes at each other for years and did nothing. But maybe that's all you ever wanted."

"What!"

"Just a bit of harmless flirtation," Emily went on mercilessly, "Better that Lorelai knows that now before things get serious and she winds up getting really hurt."

"Now just-..! You were the one who-..!" Luke found he'd lost the ability to form sentences. What was it with the Gilmore mind! Luke stared at this woman who moments ago looked like she might be on the verge of an apology and who now looked perversely victorious.

"Because if you loved her," Emily said finally, "half as much as she appears to love you, you wouldn't let Christopher-or even me-stand in your way, now would you?"

Luke blinked, even his inarticulate sputtering had gone quiet.

Emily's smug smile only broadened. "Now, if I could just get one coffee, I'll be on my way. I believe you said you were about to close up."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Okay, I admit... ending it where I did was pretty cruel. So by popular demand, here's what you've been waiting for. Heck, what we've ALL been wanting for like a month. Take comfort in this tiny morsel until TV land can sustain us again. 

Copyright: I own nothing but the socks on my feet.

* * *

Sitting on the corner of her worktable, Lorelai nursed a beer and stared with empty eyes at her garage. She had told Sookie that this was going to be her 'alone' space, which was appropriate enough since she seemed to be spending a ridiculous amount of time sitting alone in it. Once upon a time, her garage had been just a garage. It was a place where she didn't park her car and stored the small mountain of junk that was not quite useful enough or important enough to be counted among the junk that was inside her house.

And yet now, Lorelai's garage seemed to be the most important thing in her world. It was brightly coloured and glittery with flowers and stencils... and a disco ball... and yet somehow, despite hours and hours of effort, she could not erase the feeling that it was missing something.

Like macaroni without the cheese.  
Larry and Curly without Moe.  
A cup without coffee.

Her garage, which had never contained a boat before or remotely needed a boat before, now seemed fundamentally wrong without one.

"No," Lorelai murmured to herself. "I am not this pathetic."

With determination that she didn't feel, she set her beer down and picked up her bottle of gold glitter. There had to be someone else she could do to erase every possible scrap of manly, flannel-bearing memory from her new sacred space.

She was so deep in thought about potential glitter places, that she did not hear the truck door slam or the crunch of gravel on her walk. Lorelai didn't notice Luke until she walked right into him as he strided purposefully into the garage.

"Jesus Luke!" she cried, as gold glitter went flying everywhere. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"No, sorry... I just..." Luke brushed absently at the glitter that was stubbornly sticking to his flannel shirt.

"What do you want?" Lorelai asked, retreating to the far corner of the garage on the pretense of looking for a broom. "I found a pair of your socks in the living room. If you want, you can sneak in and grab them. I'll pretend not to notice."

"Emily came to the diner," Luke said in a rush and then winced as soon as the words left his mouth. It had not been what he was trying to say. It had not been even close.

It did however get Lorelai's attention, "Emily? My mother, EMILY? Oh God, I refuse to speak to her and she goes to you! Just when I think she's reached a new low, Emily just keeps on digging!"

"Lorelai-..."

"So what? You're here because you want to put out a restraining order?" Lorelai said, her fury rising with each breath. "Well don't worry, you won't need one by the time I'm-..."

Luke grabbed Lorelai by the shoulders to prevent her from barrelling past him. "I don't think matricide is in order and it is not why I came here."

"But she did this!" Lorelai cried, the anger threatening to give way to tears. "Emily did exactly what she always does, takes the best things in my life and destroys them! She-..."

"It was me, Lorelai," Luke said hoarsely. "If there is anyone to blame here, it's me."

"But she..."

Luke shook his head, cutting her off. "I thought I had it all figured out. I knew exactly what I was going to say to you if we ever made it to that first date. I even had the gall to ask you if you were scared, when I was the one who was terrified."

Lorelai felt herself soften against him as she looked into his face, "But you were 'all in'..."

"Yea," he said. "Funny thing they don't tell you about that is that there is no scarier place to be than 'all in'. I never had anything like it. I never believed I could have anything like it, anything like you."

Lorelai stepped closer, reaching up to touch is roughly stubbled cheek. "I'm 'all in', Luke. I don't think I've ever been this-..."

"I know," Luke said. "If I hadn't been so sure... if I hadn't been waiting for the other shoe to drop... I would've seen that-..."

"I love you."

"Yea," Luke said, a weak smile threatening to spread across his face. "I would've seen... well, that."

Lorelai laughed. A moment before she hadn't been sure if she would ever feel happy again and now the joy bubbling up inside her couldn't be contained. She flung her arms around his neck and Luke crushed her to him.

"Can we end the madness now?" Lorelai asked into his shoulder. "Please, I can't take another breakfast at the horrible peppy place and I'm all out of glitter."

Luke chuckled into her neck, "I'll buy you more glitter."

"I don't want glitter," she murmured. "I want a boat."

"There is no way I'm working on my Dad's boat inside the Barbie funhouse."

"Hey now!" Lorelai said, pulling away in mock indignation. "We could make the boat at home. We'll trim the windows in duct tape and put some tool hang-y things in the..."

But Luke wasn't listening. He was doing what he had been longing to do for days now. Taking Lorelai's face between his calloused hands, he drew her to him and Lorelai was falling into him the way one falls into a warm bath. He said something against her lips before he kissed them. It might have been "please shut up" or "crazy lady", but Lorelai could've sworn it was "I love you."

It wasn't really important though. There would be time for all that later.


End file.
